You Are Not Behind: A Sacred Rebellion Against the “Shoulds”

There is a quiet ache so many of us carry.

A soft, persistent whisper: “You should be further along by now.”

We feel it in our bones when we compare ourselves to someone else’s highlight reel.

In our chest when the inbox overflows.

In the pit of our stomach when we pause long enough to realize—we’re still chasing something undefined.A milestone. A number. A version of ourselves that never quite arrives.

This is the tyranny of the “shoulds.”

We’re told from the beginning there’s a timeline to follow:Walk by this age.

Graduate by that one.

Find your calling, your partner, your home, your “dream life”—

and do it all by a deadline that no one can trace but everyone seems to obey.

But what if this is the great forgetting?

What if you are not behind?

What if you are right on time—on your time—rooted in the rhythm of your own becoming?

The Seasons Know Better

Nature does not hustle.

The flower doesn’t panic when the others bloom first.

The tree does not rush to drop its leaves because autumn arrived elsewhere.

The stars do not apologize for their timing.

And yet—everything gets done. In its season. In its way.

We are nature too.

But we’ve been taught to distrust our timing.

To override our instincts with calendars and clocks.

To live as if life is a race, not a ritual.

Who Profits from Your Panic?

Let’s be honest.

Who does this way of living serve?

Who benefits when you believe you are not enough?

This pressure to perform, to produce, to constantly self-optimize—it keeps whole economies spinning.

If you’re never enough, you’ll keep buying.

If you’re always behind, you’ll stay in hustle mode

.If you’re forever reaching, you’ll never rest long enough to question the system.

This illusion is not neutral.

It’s not just cultural—it’s structural.

It is the engine of capitalism.

It is the fuel of colonization.

It is the echo of patriarchy.

Because a person who knows they are enough?

Who trusts their timing and honors their joy?

That person is free.

And free people are much harder to control.

The Cost of “Never Enough”

The belief that we are behind is not just exhausting.

It’s soul-wearing.

It keeps us out of our lives.

How can we enjoy this breath, this sunrise, this child’s laughter—

if we believe we’re failing simply by being here?

It poisons our joy.

Turns beauty into benchmarks.

Turns life into a scoreboard.

And perhaps most dangerously, it breeds unworthiness.

A myth so deeply rooted it becomes invisible.

We stop asking if the race is real.

We just keep running.

The Sacred Rebellion

To remember that you are not behind is an act of defiance.

A sacred rebellion.

It means choosing presence over pressure.

Trust over timelines.

Being over proving.

It means grieving what we were taught to believe:

That there’s somewhere else we should be.

That we’re late for a life someone else designed.

That rest is weakness.

That worth must be earned.

And it means reclaiming what was always ours:

The truth that you are whole.

You are right on time.

Your life is a living miracle, not a missed opportunity.

This is not just personal. It’s ancestral.

Many of us come from long lineages of people who were displaced, silenced, rushed, erased.

The sense of “not enough” didn’t begin with us.

It is ancestral trauma.

It is colonial residue.

It is the inheritance of systems built to make us forget who we are.

So when you rest,

when you stop comparing,

when you say no to the shame story that tells you you're late—

you are healing not just yourself,

but the whole line behind you.

And the world ahead.

What If Today…

You gave yourself permission to stop chasing?

To let go of the “shoulds”?

To believe—maybe for the first time—that you are already enough?

What if you could meet this moment—this version of you—with reverence?

You don’t need to earn your place here.

You are the place.

A living altar of time, soul, and sacred unfolding.

Let that be your rebellion.

Let that be your peace.

Let that be your prayer.